Mysterious Journey 2: Station Laser Pods and Transai Fog Maze Hints
by Soren Andersen
Station Laser Pod Array
The laser pod array puzzle that you need to solve to gain access to the satellite shuttle is an intriguing one. Upon entering the large room containing this 6x7 array of pods you will be next to an elevator that you can take up to a catwalk where you can survey the pod layout. Move out on the catwalk and look to the right to see in the wall a dark oval lens and nearby a light on a curving pole. What you must do is initiate a laser beam and direct it from pod to pod so that it strikes the lens and opens a gate to the shuttle. Fig. 1 shows the pod array as it is when you first enter the room, and without reading further here you may at this time use it to develop the puzzle solution. Otherwise:
Take the elevator back down and go to the light on the pole. On the way examine the pods and you will find that
1. When you get close to a pod it may be continuously rotated clockwise in increments of a quarter turn.
2. The four sides of the pods are either blank, have a hexagonal depression, or a pipe protruding a short distance. This pipe under proper conditions is an emitter for a laser beam and the depressions contain receptors for a beam.
3. All pods have 1 or 2 emitters and 0, 1, 2, or 3 receptors.
Inside each pod is a transponder (or mirror or prism) such that when all receptors have laser beams impinging on them a beam is produced from all emitters.
At the base of the light pole is a switch that turns on a laser in the master pod immediately behind the pole. It is clear that 3 beams must illuminate the rotated pod next to the lens, so working from this pod or from the master—or both—rotate pods to achieve this. You may check progress by observation from the catwalk. Fig. 2 is a spoiler that gives the solution.
Transai Skyport Random Path
Getting through the fog covered Transai Skyport is not as difficult as it first appears. The hardest part is correctly mapping the randomly generated tile pathway that is seen looking up from the lower level; this is facilitated if you note that the tiles alternate in appearance between a fine mesh and a marble finish. Fig. 3 may be used as an aid in making the map and then traversing it. Save your game after you have made the map because if you fall off the path in the fog a new tile pathway is generated (try it and see), and you will want to be able to get back to the one that you have mapped.
The key to getting through the fog is to listen for the sound that is heard as you pass from one tile to the next (including that from the entrance mesh to the first tile). Place the cursor on the light pole at the far end of the rank or file that you are using, then carefully note the number of tiny steps that you take from a tile edge; it takes 3 or 4 to get to the tile center. You may wish to use the keyboard W key for this instead of the mouse, and you can use the S key to move backward.
The fog generators close down after you get past them at the exit, but you will have pass back through the Skyport a couple times later in the game; the quick way to do this is to deliberately walk off the tile path and you can then go right to the lower level access ramp.
